Review – Being Lincoln: Men with Hats

As “Hey, look at the crazy people” documentaries go, this one isn’t too terrible. As the title suggests, the picture focuses on guys who dress up like Abraham Lincoln. Apparently this involves a range of activities from grade school appearances to an annual get-together complete with a Linc-off to determine the year’s best Honest Abe. The impersonators are sufficiently different from one another that you can give them nicknames as you go, such as “Fat Lincoln” or “Young Lincoln” or “Crazy Lincoln” (actually, that last one probably applies to more than one). The one thing that surprised me – and set this crowd apart from fringe folk profiled in other movies – is that they seem to lack the nasty competitiveness of superhero-beggars and Scrabble junkies. Indeed, when they get together they actually seem to help each other out, sharing wrong-size jackets, used hats and the like. In the words of the great man himself, “party on, dudes!” Mildly amusing